Serious consequences if 'unfriend' on Facebook

A new study has found serious consequences from "unfriending" someone on a social network.

Researchers say 40% of people claim to avoid the person who made friends with them on Facebook. In particular, women often deliberately avoid face cancellation of friends than men.

"People think social networks are just for entertainment," said Dr. Christopher Sibona, author of the research team at Colorado Denver Business School . "But in fact, what you do on Facebook can have real-world consequences."

Some consequences show that social network relationships have affected people in the real world. Many people may feel hurt, feeling not belonging to an organization or society or losing control after being "unfriend" . Some also said they were in a worse mood after the broken relationship on social networks.

"The cost to maintain an online relationship is very cheap, but in the real world, the cost is much higher," Sibona said . "In real life, you have to talk to people, meet face-to-face to maintain relationships. But the internet is not. Because everything is online, it feels unrealistic. However, they still carry to real-life consequences ".

This study surveyed the opinions of 583 people and found that there are some common points that users will deliberately avoid people who "unfriend" them on Facebook. The factors are:

1. If the person often discusses negatively about events.
2. If they react to canceling you too negatively.
3. If you believe that the cause of the conclusion is due to some misconduct when they meet offline
4. Due to the geographical distance is too far between the two.
5. If the relationship between the two parties goes wrong before canceling the friend.

The important thing that the study author draws is that "those who are annihilated you can face psychological impacts, because your cancellation can be considered a form of social boycott . " According to the research author, canceling you has a strong impact on real relationships and can cause serious psychological consequences.

Sibona's research has been published on the Hawaii International Conference on Science.